Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Libraries locate, collect, preserve, describe, and organize A LOT of information so that people can access it for a variety of purposes.

There are many types of resources you can access through the GSU Library, for example:

• Special Collections and Archives: Historical artifacts that convey information (and disinformation), in many forms.
• Newspapers, Trade Magazines, and Popular Magazines: Articles published with the intent to quickly inform the public, often containing advertisements, errors, and forms of disinformation that may be updated or corrected over time.
• Scholarly (peer-reviewed): Articles published according to a rigorous set of standards, and reviewed by professional peers. This includes open access literature and systematic reviews.
• Empirical (scientific): Articles that are scholarly, but which also report findings of original scientific studies that address specific research questions.

This means that not everything inside a library's collection will meet your specific needs. The relevance of information you find while performing a search is determined by your research scope.

To determine your research scope, you may set parameters by asking yourself:

• What date range do I want to set for research publication?
• Am I performing historical research? If so, I may be seeking information produced a long time ago.
• Am I examining pop culture? If so, I may seek to explore popular magazines and newspapers.
• Do I need to find first-person narratives for my research? If so, I may want to explore archival material, newspaper op-eds, or trade magazines.
• Do I need more reliable information? If so, I may be seeking peer-reviewed journals and would select "peer-reviewed" when searching for articles inside scholarly databases.
• Am I seeking a review of previous research in a certain area? If so, I may want to perform a title search that includes the terms "systematic review," "annual review," or "literature review."
• Am I seeking resources that report the findings of original research? If so, I need to review article abstracts to look for identifying qualities like: methodology sections, results sections, and data visualizations.

The Information Cycle follows the progession of coverage of a newsworthy event (i.e. current event) through various forms of media. Knowing about and understanding the information cycle will help you choose and evaluate information sources covering your topic.